Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Guest]

Almost level 11 now, and I finally managed to afford a house! Totally skinted me; after I've handed over the money then the guy says "You can also furnish your house..."

Oh god. As I suspected; the place is a hole! 5 grand for that! Tom Nook would be proud.

[kiroquai]

That's happened twice for me with a dragon. Once in some trees (I assume there were too many for it to land properly), and the second time was Whiterun, same as yours. It kind of disappeared over the wall.

I've had a few fly off during a battle too. One of them was between Whiterun and Falkreath - I was giving it a bit of a slapping so just before I got its health low enough to ground it off it swooped, over behind a mountain never to return.

Falkreath must have done something to piss the dragons off though, as three attacked it all in two game days. This led to a hilarious aside; one particular guard survived all three attacks. Late in the evening of the second day I saw him draw his sword and run behind the buildings... another dragon attack? No, it was a wandering Mud Crab. Even more hilariously given that he'd survived three dragons in 48 hours, he ran straight into one of its attacks and down he went

I love all the little side stories you can just happen upon in this.

[Monkeyboy]

I've got my house completely kitted out now. It's well worth it. So cosy. The little alchemy room is ace. I have a chest full of ingredients in there.

The bookshelves are amazing. You can put your books on the shelf, and the game automatically arranges them nice and neat, just like a proper bookshelf.

[Mr Ben]

This game

I never thought I'd play an rpg like this in my lifetime!

Found some dungeon where spellswords seem to live. Killed them all, as well as some Orc called Bashnag and their pet fox called Pumpkin (the only fox I've managed to kill too )

[roskelld]

Took a stroll up the mountain earlier to meet the Greybeards after getting horribly owned on the way up by a Frost Troll last time, about 10 levels previous.

Took him down in 3 arrers this time

This troll?

He just wanted a nice cuddle

[robdood]

I seem to be actually role playing slightly in this. You know, actually getting into "being" my character, as opposed to just playing through a video game. I saw some giants at a camp for the first time, and actually felt a bit intimidated. So instead of steaming in, I just crept quietly round their camp, out of respect.

Then I ended up creeping down, down, through a forest, with the mist rolling in. At the bottom, a lake, and a waterfall with a cave nearby called Darkshade. Seemed like a handy place to stop.

And it would have been. If not for the TROLL LIVING INSIDE IT!

I was there yesterday - didn't the mutilated bodies outside give you a bit of a warning?

I got up early for work today so I could play a bit more.. proper obsessed! Just climbed the 7000 steps - incredible. The snowy weather was so atmospheric

Also, I discovered a new protip:

Hold shift while looting to instantly use an item - not sure if that'll be possible on console too, since shift is the 'walk' key on PC.

[roskelld]

So everyone was talking about the game in work today. It's amazing how even someone that's only played the game for a few hours can have experienced a totally different thing to you. Seeing different places, fighting different things. It's so hard not to spoil stuff as there's little gauge to work out what someone should have seen.

One of the guys was sheepish to admit how long he's got on his play time. He eventually fessed up, saying he's clocked 46 hours so far. I thought that was insane as I'd managed about 23 in the same amount of time... That was until I got home and checked my save. 42 hours, and it's now nearer 47 after tonights session.

Not since Fallout 3 have I stupendously lost this many hours to a game in such a short time.

[Talk Show Host]

You know this game owns you when you actually stop to rent a room in a inn, to spend the night before continuing towards that map marker.

Or when you sit on a stool in order to talk to the innkeeper about rumours or available work.

[Flub]

37 hours on my save game so far. I'm about halfway through the main quest. Just got a very handy shout so I thought I'd leave the main quest there. I spent a good chunk of yesterday levelling up my smithing to 100 which A) cost a bloody fortune and B) is the main reason why I'm level 29 . Still my magika enchanted dragon armour looks badass.

I've finished the Mage college and the companions. I've just had a note from what I presume is the dark brotherhood saying

We Know

Last night's session finished with me buying my second house (Cost 8000. There's another two I've got available to buy that I've found so far). Now I need to make some cash to equip it.

Yesterday I did a random dungeon. It's easy to tell where the auto-leveling is happening. You'll find potions of your rank randomly scattered with the minor healing crap and mobs that pop out will be a mix of ones you one shot and ones that are obviously your level. Then I ran up some stairs and a max rank Draugr got up out of his chair, disarmed me and then blew me down the stairs with a shout and proceeded to kill me with two hits . I reloaded, marked him for death, then kited him around the room filling him full of fireballs. When my shout recharged I lured him in and then used my three word force shout to blow him over the other side of the room and beat him down with my soul trap mace. FIRST HEAD FOR HECATE (Spot my nerdy reference).

Currently I'm rocking a mix of gear. I've got three legendary pieces of dragon armour I made myself. The chest piece is armour 100 thanks to a +15% smithing enhancement thing I have. My head armour is one of those collectable masks. This one gives me +100% magika regeneration rate. Gloves are dragon enchanted with extra magika. Boots are dragon enchanted with a +20% stamina recharge rate. Necklace and rings both give me magika boosts. I just found another one of the collectable masks too. This one gives me better prices in shops. 20% I think. When I remember to wear it. The biggest problem I have there is shopkeepers never have enough money to buy all my loot. Takes days to sell sometimes. My weapon set is three daedric weapons. A fire axe (20 fire damage), daedric mace (Soul trap. 6 seconds) and a daedric sword (16 shock). All enchanted up to legendary to around 50 damage.

Also I did an ace quest where I had to steal the papers for a horse from a lodge and then the horse. I rode it back to the guy who wanted it and my speechcraft was high enough to

Get paid and blackmail him into letting me keep the horse. It's called Frost and likes to stomp forsworn until they're sobbing for mercy in a corner

I might take a break tonight and play some Halo Anniversary though. Don't want to burn out in the first week.

(Side note. My new Turtle Beach PX5s arrived today and the sound quality blew me away. Proper surround sound and everything is crystal clear. I have the option of a wired cable to my Onza (The design flaw that made the cables almost unusable on the X41 is fixed) or a bluetooth adaptor for my regular pad. Sadly the bt dongle won't fit the Onza and also won't fit a regular pad with a chatpad plugged in either. It's not too bad though. At the moment I don't want to use anything else but the Onza. Those face buttons are just so nice).

[Rayn]

Sorry if repost, but this made me chuckle. Is it even possible to use this and not get caught?

[jonamok]

I really don't like the extreme weather effects when you go too high or too north.

Ah, avatar irony

[JoeK]

Bloody giants taking all the glory. I had a big surprise when I was shooting down a dragon. It's health seemed to go down dramatically after only a couple of arrow shots. So I wander closer to it to smack it with a sword, only to see two giants completely clobbering the thing. And then they turned their attention to me.

Needless to say, at the level I'm on at the moment, I went flying...

[siread]

Encountered a few bugs last night. At one point the Xbox just froze whilst I was wandering through some trees near Whiterun. Reboot. Then later I spotted the master dragon summoning a dead one. So I fired a few shots at him whilst he was shouting and he immediately flew off before finishing the resurrection, leaving the whirlwind thing spewing out of the grave. And possibly not a bug, but I had in my possession a shield that I was supposed to deliver but hadn't got round to it, and ended up doing the party guest mission instead. Unfortunately you cannot store a quest item (the shield) like you can your other weapons, so when I sneaked out the back of the party the guards immediately knew I was a spy because I had a massive shield hidden in my pocket. At least I think that's what happened.

Still loving it though.

[kiroquai]

The only issue I have with this game so far is a good one really; it pretty much sucks entire evenings away from you without you even noticing. Last night I got home from work and decided that I wanted to upgrade my smithing ability and get some nice armour and such. I did that, but the process of doing it included what I mentioned about (what shall now forever be known as the Siege of Falkreath), and whilst collecting the items I needed I found all sorts of nice places. Eventually I managed to find a really big dungeon with some great loot and a really nice surprise at the end, all completely by chance having wandered randomly off my planned course.

I started playing at about 8pm. Had a few breaks for various things, but suddenly it was 1am and I desperately needed to go to bed. Except, I'd found another amazing little dungeon and was trying to sneak my way around that... and then I got some loot that I wanted to see if I could upgrade, and then I found I could but I needed a certain type of refined metal, which I knew I could get from.... ARGH

[Guest]

I chanced upon my first wild dragon last night and it took me a life to take him down. He was circling and attacking some fort or other near Whiterun and it was difficult to get in close for the kill - he was flying all over the place! They're hard to track when they've decided they'll attack anything.

I'm really not doing much damage to it and while trying to get to its landing spot I seem to have upset a Giant. I realised this as I hear footsteps or something, and turned to see him charging at me club aloft. I did a 180 away from him and hit sprint just as he brought the club to the earth; the ground shook and dirt flew up yet I was just out of range! Phew.

What this did mean was that with myself and the giant in close proximity the dragon landed and we took him down. I saw we; mainly it was him.

The dragon starts to disintegrate and I want to stay close by...the Giant is chasing me around the corpse mind so I'm quaffing stamina potions to say ahead of him. I really want that Dragon soul and have the feeling if I stray too far off I'll lose it!

I get just a bit cocky in our little chase game as the soul starts to absorb into me, inwardly thinking "I have the powerrrrr!" - the Giant catches me and thumps his club to the ground. I spiral into the air, a perfect 3rd person view of my tumbling, rag dolling corpse as its infused with crackling blue energy; the last few seconds my character turns to face me mid flight, the bright electricity lighting up his eyes sockets, almost staring accusingly at me saying "You idiot"

[Flub]

I'm at work and have this incredible craving to go home and start a new character. Stealth, archery and possibly one school of magic for backup. I'm thinking conjuration for the extra help. Does anyone have any tips? It's not normally the sort of character I'd ever play. One thing I've learned from my 1-handed, destruction game is that most mobs run towards you in a straight line and don't stop. In a room with 4-6 of these buggers and the tight corridors of most dungeons how do you play an archer? What's your backup plan when a draugr is in your face with a sword?

Tips for leveling stealth and pick-pocketing also much appreciated. My plan is to do the main quest up until you get the first shout and head out after I become Thane of Whiterun (So I can save up for the first house). Then head up to the Steed Stone for that particular bonus. After that we'll see. I'll also be leveling enchanting and blacksmithing since they're so bloody handy.

Top tip for leveling blacksmithing (In spoilers just in case)

It's the same amount of skill gain no matter what you smith. An iron dagger ranks you up the same as a dragon chest plate. So it obviously follows that since iron daggers are the cheapest thing ever to make that you can level all the way up to 100 with that. Yes you can. I spent a good chunk of yesterday doing it and it cost a bloody fortune

I suspect something similar occurs for enchanting.

Top tips. Blacksmithing is fantastic. Your crafted stuff is much better than most looted stuff and the grindstone/workbench can make it much better (superior,flawless,epic, legendary I think) really cheaply. At the very least it's worthwhile at the start enhancing your weapons with any iron/leather you find and making daggers with the rest. Combined with enchanting you can easily customise your gear to suit your needs. As soon as you find a weapon with soul tap disenchant it (Unless it's better than your current weapon) and make yourself a new weapon with that enchant as a spare. Start saving your soul gems. They're really light and very useful to have once you start using enchanted weapons. If a fight is going to be quick open up with your soul tap weapon and kill the mob quickly. If it's a boss beat it down with your regular attacks and finish the fight with your soul tap weapon. You'll have loads of filled soul gems in no time. If you find a black soul gem quickly kill a human with your soul tap weapon. It's the equivalent of a grand soul gem then I think.

Locksmithing. It's challenging but I was able to open master locks with less than 30 lockpicking skill. Takes me 10-20 lockpicks but I tend to have around 80 at any one time anyway I think it might be easier if I adjust the right stick on my Onza to be tighter. I'll try it tonight (Epic hax). Eithr way lockpicking is bloody slow to level even with me cracking every chest and door I see.

Dammit. Fucking work.

[locke_211]

Some of the starting mission objectives that end up in the miscellaneous folder are remarkable vague. One of them is 'find evidence of someone's past' and another is 'find a sword you read about' - they could be anywhere!

[Flub]

Some of the starting mission objectives that end up in the miscellaneous folder are remarkable vague. One of them is 'find evidence of someone's past' and another is 'find a sword you read about' - they could be anywhere!

Most of them track on the map if selected though I think.

Everyone grab the clairvoyance spell. If you get to the end of a dungeon like I did yesterday and suddenly realise "Where the fuck is the thing I was sent here for?". A quick cast of clairvoyance and you find the chest annoyingly hidden behind a rock

Also fans of the Shivering Isles will love one short but rather entertaining quest In fact all the Daedra quests I've done so far have been fun. Good rewards too.

[Voodoo-child]

Was wandering to kill some bandits & saw a troll walking a small wooley mammoth. Shame he one hit killed me. Amazing sight!

This games just keeps giving.

[kiroquai]

@Flub:

I play a sneaky archer ( ) and find it a heck of a lot of fun. There's nothing quite like the sense of power you get when you stroll into an area with a few bandits and then cause utter panic with a few well-placed arrows. Some of the perks really help too; sneak will give you one that makes arrows fired when hidden carry a x3 damage bonus, and the archery perks such as the ability to zoom in and also slow down time for a while become utterly crucial.

Basically, when indoors I usually am very careful when going around corners. If there's someone down the hall I wait until my stamina bar is fully charged, draw my bow and pull back an arrow and then focus in to fire. If that doesn't kill the target (with x3 damage it usually does) then the subsequent arrows you can fire due to being able to slow time down will do the trick.

If I am cornered I use a Shout or two. The one that knocks things down is great and enables me to run away and hide around a corner; when I do this I then basically play divide and conquer tactics and pick off the stragglers from the group, As a backup though I do have a favourite setup of a mace and healing magic. Oh, and the ability to cast some kind of minion really helps too as it distracts your enemies away from you so you can fire arrows undetected whilst they fight whatever you've just conjured up. I have a weapon called the Sanguine Rose that does this for me and it's proven an utter godsend.

[Sng]

Had my first good sit down with this yesterday.

It suffers from the same issues as most Elder Scroll games, I find, the combat sucks, the voice acting is embarrassing at times and the animations, especially how/where NPCs walk is very last-gen.

Just think of this if it had the voice acting of Uncharted, facial-mapping of LA Noire, combat of Dark Souls!

So after the initial letdown I got to Whiterun and the first thing I did was buy a horse. I have about a half-dozen quests that I've been blindly chasing for the last hour or so but with the horse I turned them all off and just head south. First thing I saw were some crabs chilling on these rocks by a stream. Then a giant herding a couple of what looked like wooly mammoths.

Next thing I know it's midnight!

Now it feels like I'm in an AA meeting and I'm talking about how long I've gone without Skyrim. Already looking into excuses to leave work early so I can sink back in again.

[locke_211]

I've played over 20 hours and still have only been to Whiterun and Riften! I've got some quest objectives in other places, though, so I'll move on soonish. But still so many caves and such around those two places to explore first!

I lucked out last night and found GOLD!

[Sng]

Some of the starting mission objectives that end up in the miscellaneous folder are remarkable vague. One of them is 'find evidence of someone's past' and another is 'find a sword you read about' - they could be anywhere!

Isn't that a good thing? Means you gotta use your brain or just explore!

Better that than all the missions be marked with an X so you just have to run straight to a given point.

[moosegrinder]

fuck me, the fucking followers are fucking useless when you're trying to get somewhere. They're not much use when in combat (thanks for standing at the end of the corridor away from the fight, Lydia. Massive help). The only thing so far that's a massive chore.

[Schnibbles]

Oh no, the talk of other ways of playing the game make me want to restart! I'm playing a mage, but haven't focussed on one school of magic particularly - I mainly use Destruction, Conjuration and Restoration, of course - which means I haven't really specialised.

Now all this talk of enchanted weapons makes me want to start a new game as my original idea, a hack and slasher Redguard enchanted to the max. Or a Khajiit thief type. Or an archer. Damn, too many ways to play the game!

[locke_211]

Isn't that a good thing? Means you gotta use your brain or just explore!

Better that than all the missions be marked with an X so you just have to run straight to a given point.

Yes, it is a good thing! But the idea of finding them is quite daunting. I guess for one of the two I need to start by finding some sort of

boat

somewhere...

[Flub]

@Flub:

I play a sneaky archer ( ) and find it a heck of a lot of fun. There's nothing quite like the sense of power you get when you stroll into an area with a few bandits and then cause utter panic with a few well-placed arrows. Some of the perks really help too; sneak will give you one that makes arrows fired when hidden carry a x3 damage bonus, and the archery perks such as the ability to zoom in and also slow down time for a while become utterly crucial.

Basically, when indoors I usually am very careful when going around corners. If there's someone down the hall I wait until my stamina bar is fully charged, draw my bow and pull back an arrow and then focus in to fire. If that doesn't kill the target (with x3 damage it usually does) then the subsequent arrows you can fire due to being able to slow time down will do the trick.

If I am cornered I use a Shout or two. The one that knocks things down is great and enables me to run away and hide around a corner; when I do this I then basically play divide and conquer tactics and pick off the stragglers from the group, As a backup though I do have a favourite setup of a mace and healing magic. Oh, and the ability to cast some kind of minion really helps too as it distracts your enemies away from you so you can fire arrows undetected whilst they fight whatever you've just conjured up. I have a weapon called the Sanguine Rose that does this for me and it's proven an utter godsend.

Excellent stuff. I wasn't terribly worried once I level up a little bit. It was more those first few levels when you don't have any perks. I was thinking more the first dungeon. But to be honest at that point nobody has any skills at all and you level so fast in the early stages I could even do it with a different skill if I was struggling and save the perks for later. Anyway. TONIGHT THEY FEAST ON MY ARROWS. Kill one quick and then turn him into a zombie to distract the rest

Hmm. What to choose. First five perks I think will be (In this order)

Stealth (Is there skill requirements for raising this further?

Overdraw

Novice Conjuration (Or perhaps restoration. Not decided yet. I'll see how it plays out)

Light armour (I plan to pay attention to this tree when I can)

Pickpocket

After that some more stealth/pickpocket (If they're not skill rank locked) until I can level the other skills more. Smithing as I level it naturally. Not going to speed level that until much later. Enchanting I'll start as soon as I get a soul tap weapon I can disenchant.

AGHHHHH. I'M STUCK AT WORK.

[daveodeth]

Some folks have mentioned dragons flying overhead but not landing and attacking, I believe these ones have a lair nearby that you can trek to and kill them. I've had 2 instances of it and there's an icon nearby.

[kiroquai]

One thing I recommend as soon as you hit Sneak level 40 is Deadly Aim - that's the 3x damage on arrows fired when hidden one. Really makes a huge difference!

Generally I found that if I played it by constantly being crouched and firing arrows at enemies whilst hidden, particularly in the perk-free early stages, both my Sneak and Archery levels leapt upward quite quickly. Might be a slower way of doing things, but it pays its dues

[davejm]

How far can we spread our perks guys? I'm a sneaky archer at the moment so I'm focussing on sneak and archery (obviously!!) but if there are plenty to go around then I'll put some in other trees (constellations?!) too such as light armour, bit of magic etc.